


Facade

by CobaltStargazer



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Attraction, F/M, I Don't Know Either, Longing, pretense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-09
Updated: 2014-09-09
Packaged: 2018-02-16 18:18:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2279907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CobaltStargazer/pseuds/CobaltStargazer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wonders if she sees him, really sees him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Facade

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pandorabox82](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pandorabox82/gifts).



> I can't decide if I'm sorry for this or not, so I won't apologize.

He wonders if she sees him, really sees him.

On the surface, they have nothing in common. Like Reid, she's an intellectual, and he has a very hard time imagining her kicking down a door or taking down an UnSub on her own. She fights with her brain, not her fists. He respects that. He's smart enough, smart enough to have gotten into the Bureau, but he knows she can probably run rings around him when it comes to book knowledge. It's a little frightening. Almost as frightening as it is alluring.

In front of her, he plays the ladies man as he always has, bold and confident. The others expect it of him by now, even Penelope. The flirting, the banter, the dropped hints. In quiet moments, though, its her he's watching. He knows he shouldn't, that she has someone, and he'll never speak of the tightness in his chest when he sees her small smile of triumph when she's right about something. He yearns in silence, unable to articulate the thing he feels. The man he is in the presence of others, even his friends, is not the man he is inside. He thinks that if she knew, she would be kind about it. But the very thought fills him with terror, and so he says nothing. He plays the rogue, the gallant, the charmer instead, and no one suspects.

It's easier with Penelope, who beams and bubbles happily when he pays attention to her. _She_ is serious,, almost grave, and sometimes when her dark eyes fall on him he thinks she's looking into the core of him, where a little boy who was once put through something unspeakable still lives. But if she sees it, she gives no sign, perhaps because she knows he couldn't bear it if she did. Sometimes he hates her, but he does that in silence as well. Mostly, he just yearns.

When one of the monsters they try to catch takes away one of their own, it hits them hard, and even his apparent arrogance dims. They gather together and drinks toasts to the fallen, and it goes on until well into the nights. When the groups breaks up, he offers to walk her to her car. She's wobbly. They both have a good buzz going, and he says, "Let me call you a taxi. You're in no shape to drive."

"You can't call me a taxi," she responds. "I'm not a taxi, I'm a Ph.D." 

He's caught flat-footed, and he just looks at her for a second before he says, "Did you just make a joke?"

"I think I did." She's going through her bag, looking for her keys, and her movements are jerky and uncoordinated. "Call it inappropriate humor. You're not supposed to make jokes at a wake, right?"

"Hey."

He doesn't know why he touches her, puts his hand on her shoulder. She's shorter than he is, and the touch distracts her. When she looks up, he realizes she has tears in her eyes. If she cries, it will destroy him. 

"I...she...she was..."

He puts two fingers on her chin, tipping it upwards, and before he can think he's got his lips on hers. So soft, so gentle. He is not the Alpha now, not the self-assured man he pretends to be. He is the child who received pain from someone who should have protected him, left him wounded and damaged. Her mouth tastes like whiskey. For one brief second, she kisses him back.

And then she puts her hand on his chest, palm flattening against his tie, and gently eases him away from her. It is her nature to be gentle, or at least calm. But it hurts him, and he looks at her with all of his inner pain laid bare. He's made a terrible mistake, and now he must correct it. Before she realizes the truth.

He pulls the mask back in place, that cheerfully brash expression he wears so well, and his smile exposes teeth. "I didn't think you were _that_ drunk," he says airily. On the inside, he's bleeding. She looks like she wants to say something, but he doesn't want to know what that is. He knows he's an idiot. The night is getting cold.

He finds his phone, and after some scrolling he summons a taxi for her. She still looks as if she has something to say, and to stop her too-clever brain from putting it together he says, "Hey, what I did, that was just so you wouldn't cry. I can't stand to see a pretty lady in tears." It's both the truth and a lie, and the mask is like a second skin again. 

It takes the cab what seems like a _long_ time to get there. He watches her get in it from a safe distance, then gets into his own vehicle. He's stone sober now and wishes he wasn't. 

He looks at his eyes in the rear view mirror before he starts the car. They're sad. He needs to work on that.


End file.
